I hate to break it to anyone who comes close to or passes the big 4-0, but the bad news is you can’t train like a 20-year-old to get a flat stomach. The good news is that you don’t have to train like a 20-year-old to get a flat stomach.

In her late teens and early twenties, her body was high in fat-burning growth hormone, her stress was fairly low, and she could often rely on Mom and Dad Hotel for good meals and help. financial. She fast-forwards 20 years and finds some changes:

• Slow recovery;
• High stress;
• Slow metabolism;
• Less time for training; Y
• Accumulated insults and indulgences.

It’s like trying to get better mileage out of an older car. You can do it. But, you have to be smart about it. In the case of your body and your health, you have to be smart about your exercise, diet, and behavior.

EXERCISE

Exercise for the 40+ crowd should focus on posture and structure for optimal function and strength. You can’t be super strong and healthy with a sunken chest, sloping shoulders, and a protruding belly. You may have some “old man strength” for a short period of time, but you will lack energy and stamina.

Try to pull your neck back into your neck, roll your shoulders back and bring your shoulder blades together. You will notice that your stomach naturally contracts when your body is aligned. This is why the older soldier may appear fitter than the younger but stooped recruit.

Obviously, when the body is aligned, you feel and breathe better. Your digestion improves and you probably won’t tire as easily. So even without burning a lot of calories, your weight will be distributed throughout your body, improving your ease of movement and appearance. Posture is very important in martial arts and yoga. And you see a lot more older people in those areas than, say, aerobic dance.

Here’s a secret to a flatter tummy after forty: Always include some posture and back exercises when training your abs. To start, practice the single-leg seated stretch and the standing lunge. The single-leg stretch is performed by sitting on a mat with one leg straight and the opposite leg bent with the foot near the groin. Slowly bring your chin and chest toward your foot. Relax, take a deep breath and exhale as you stretch. Stretching one leg at a time reduces the chance of back strain. Spend about 30 seconds per leg. Some professionals stretch for 10 minutes in each position. This stretches the hamstrings that shorten from sitting too much.

Avoid jerky, jerky movements and/or forehead stretching, as these popular movements can strain your upper and lower back.

The standing lunge is like a karate stance or a fencer’s lunge. Stand with one leg forward with your knee bent and the other leg stretched out behind you. Keep your front knee above your ankle. Hold 30 seconds and switch. This move stretches your hip flexors, which also get tight from standing and sitting too much.

The other problem posture area is the upper back. Too much time behind the wheel or behind the computer causes these muscles to loosen from lack of use. Train yourself to get out of the car or desk chair and move around at least every hour. Torso raises, Pilates Breast Stroke, cobra yoga, swimming, classical dance, and martial arts strengthen this area.

Along with posture, you should use maximum effort exercises. Cardio or resistance exercises are great for your heart and lungs. But max-effort exercises like isometrics, weightlifting, and certain bodyweight exercises will increase your body’s growth hormone and bone density. Strength training is more anti-aging than resistance exercise, although both are important. This means that performing squats (with or without weights), overhead presses, pull-ups, bodyweight exercises, and curls 2-4 times a week will slow down aging better than jogging every day.

While long resistance sessions will burn more calories during exercise, strength exercises will continue to burn fat AFTER exercise. After a strength training session, your muscles are rebuilding while burning fat. Even while you are at home watching TV, sleeping, etc. In fact, you can exercise less and get more benefits. I discovered this decades ago when I was running twice a week and lifting weights twice a week. Within a couple of months, he was running 1.5 miles faster than the guys who ran 3 miles every day. Strength training, nutrition, and rest days gave me a higher performance than the guys who inched every day at the same pace.

As for having a flat stomach: here is a routine that I have used in my forties and fifties ONLY ONCE A WEEK.

1. First, work your upper back. Keeping your hips on the ground, lift your torso off the mat. Your head should be kept straight so that you are looking forward about a foot. (Not shown.)

2. First, work your obliques. Since these are the stabilizers of the body, they will tend to help the other abdominal groups during an abdominal workout. You’ll want to get them out so the other abdominal groups work harder. Side-to-side movements, such as leg swings, will work this area.

3. Next, work your lower abs. As bodybuilders, athletes, and former pregnant women can tell you, this is a soft area of ​​the body that is difficult to strengthen. Movements like leg raises will work this area. Again, you want this area to be pre-stressed so you can really work on the next stage.

4. Now work on the crunch for the upper abs. With the other abdominal groups already fatigued, the upper abs have to take on most of the workload. This is like most of a rowing team suddenly stopping and leaving two members to continue rowing. The upper abs work much harder than if they were navigating along with the rest of the abdominal “team.”

No more than 3 seconds of rest between exercises. Go from one exercise to the next, and then rest for a minute after the crunches. Then repeat for 3 sets of the entire sequence. Start with 5 reps and go up to 30. It’s a kick in the butt but produces amazing results in about 5 sessions.